Rebirth of a Time Lord
by dark-phile-slayin-angel
Summary: What once was lost now is found... What was will be again... Nothing is ever truly forgotten...
1. Chapter One: The Most Important Woman

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This story is based off of this picture that I found, and I wasn't satisfied to find any story that really touched on the concept or did it justice. So I decided to take up the mantle. The link is above if you want to see the picture.

Please be patient with me about updates, I'm trying to write this several chapters ahead.

I don't currently have betas for this story. If you want to help me out, please let me know.

Let me know what you think, either good or bad. As much as I love kudos, I get better feedback from comments.

**Chapter One: The Most Important Woman in the Universe**

It was shortly after the wedding that the dreams began.

Dreams of space and time, dreams of running, dreams of pain and hope that broke her heart and mended it at the same time. She woke with tears trickling down her cheeks in the morning, and the dreams faded away, returning back inside the blue box within her mind.

She felt like there was a piece of herself missing, despite her happiness with her life. A feeling that was confirmed when she looked into the eyes of her grandfather. There was a grief that he had when he looked at her, much as he tried to hide it. Something she would do or say, and he would be ready to break down in tears.

Her mother had the look too, but she hid it better. She couldn't hide the change in her behavior. She and Mum had never been the best of friends, especially after she reached majority, but now she didn't nag her as much, or lay on the guilt as much anymore. She was gentler, at least with her, and more supportive. When she had finally brought Shawn home, she had dreaded the moment. It felt like the world would end. But her mother welcomed Shawn with open arms, not even dropping anvils of hints about marriage, and after the disaster of Lance, she wasn't looking to get hitched again.

She was doing well at work, medical transcription at a local doctor's office. She and the doctor's wife got along like a house on fire, almost to the chagrin to the doctor. They had been invited to the wedding, but a family emergency had cropped up, and they couldn't attend. And she had wanted to share the news of her new fortune, which had come from her granddad on her wedding day as a present, And it turned out to be a winner! A jackpot of over five hundred million pounds! The number on the enormous check that she had taken a picture with was £516,231,163 to be exact. Not that she didn't want to keep her job. She did. But now she could do everything that she planned, like making sure her granddad and mum were taken care of.

She wanted to do more, she dreamed of more, even if she couldn't remember what she dreamed about. They had moved into a new house, nothing too extravagant, but somewhere that could house her, mum, granddad, and Shawn and still give everyone space.

She was a week into unpacking the parlor when there was a knock on her door. In retrospect, she recognized that some part of her, hidden away, told her not to answer the door, to run or flee, to do anything except go to her front door. She squashed down the bizarre trepidation and twisted the knob, making a mental note to have Shawn oil the hinges when he got home.

In front of her stood a man, dressed very sharp, if Victorian costume dress was something she fancied, which she didn't. "Yes, can I help you?"

The man smirked in a way that was almost a sneer, fueling the trepidation that she had smothered initially. "I do hope so. Are you Donna Noble?"

Irritation flared a little in her. "That's Temple-Noble," she rebuked. "What do you want?"

The sneer grew in full as men without faces but with mouths filled with pointed teeth pushed in from the sides and a migraine the likes of which she had never felt erupted in her head. She fell to her knees, one hand braced against the floor while the other cradled her head, whispers stabbing like needles in her mind.

"I want the name of the Doctor," the man smugly said as he stood towering over her, the pain in her head getting worse by the second.

She managed to mumble a query before she lost herself to the darkness of unconsciousness.

"Doctor who?"


	2. Chapter Two: Lost Things To Be Found

**Chapter Two: Lost Things to be Found**

Donna awoke to the sound of dripping water and the smell of damp. She was lying on ice cold concrete and she began shivering as she regained consciousness. There was a heavy vibration in the ground that was not helping her headache at all, though it was what had woken her up. She opened her eyes slightly, then closed them again in protest to the bright light bulb swinging from the ceiling, set in motion by the vibration in the ground.

She shaded her eyes from the light with her hand and opened them again to look around. She was reminded of the spy movies she sometimes watched with Shawn, the ones that villains used to interrogate the protagonist in some underground room with a reinforced door and concrete walls. She didn't see a table, but there was a grey lump in the corner opposite to her that she thought was supposed to pass for a mattress, but had seen too much abuse. While she was inclined to not go anywhere near something so obviously rubbish, the floor was too cold for her to keep lying on, and she wasn't quite up to standing yet, so she slowly crawled over to the mattress at a far shorter distance than she anticipated, and collapsed on it.

She felt like she should be panicking as she curled into the fetal position. She should be shouting her head off for whatever lunatic had kidnapped her, but something in the back of her mind told that it wouldn't do her any good, despite it making her feel better. The man had said he wanted the name of the doctor. The doctor she worked for, is that who he was asking about? Dr. Williams wasn't anyone, really. H just ran a clinic with his wife, but…what if this was some kind of Mafia vendetta, or espionage? Maybe he was in some sort of witness protection program?

Whatever it was, this was all some sort of mistake, and she would explain that she didn't know anything. Yeah! That's what she'd do. But that never worked on the telly for the spy shows. Oh god she was gonna die, wasn't she? She'd never see Mum, or Gramps, or Shawn again. What would they do without her? She'd only been married for a few weeks, for goodness sake!

Her careening train of thought was derailed when the door opened and those men with the weird faces came in and grabbed her. Her legs were weak underneath her, and she was half-dragged from the room. The space opened up, and she saw that she was in tunnels, like for the Underground. They were bringing her to a chair that looked like it had been bolted down to the floor. There were a lot of wires coming from the back of a sort of helmet looking thing that ran down to the ground and the cables snaked along the floor.

She attempted to struggle to get away, but she felt so drained of energy. She was drooped into the chair, which reminded of the old electric chairs for execution in prisons. It even had the wrist, ankle, and chest straps, which she was promptly buckled into with nary a fuss. The funny looking man in the top hat and big nose looked on almost impassively, but Donna could see a malevolent spark of glee in his eyes at her distress.

"Well, Donna Noble, so good of you to join us," he said jovially, opening his arms wide in a mocking gesture of welcome. The sort of helmet thing was placed on her head and strapped under her chin, feeling like one of those prize grabber claws with three fingers gripping her head. "Now, we can get to the heart of the manner and you are going to give me the name of the Doctor." The smug looking man stood before her, hands clasped together at the small of his back, as if his stance determined the irrefutably of his words.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Do you mean Dr. Williams? Dr. Anthony Williams is his name," Donna expelled, her voice starting to shake at the fear she was trying to keep contained.

Top Hat Man scoffed. "As if some human filth would interest me. No, I speak of the meddlesome Time Lord himself, the Doctor."

"You're talking nonsense. Doctor who?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "If you will not cooperate, then I have no choice but to make you." He nodded his head to one of things standing next to a board of switches and dials. The creature turned the dial, and pain shot through every nerve, every muscle, and every cell of Donna's body.

A scream was dragged from behind her clenched, grinding teeth as she shuddered and twitched, trying to get free of this machine. The fastenings held fast, and she was unable to escape, shaking at the agony that she was enduring.

Her head was getting the worst of it, not only because that was the origin point, but because she felt her mind almost trying to tear itself apart. She could almost hear whispers, but in her mind, which made the pain even worse. She could feel herself losing consciousness again, and as she fell into the black, she could almost swear that a wave of gold light burst out of her head, knocking out her captors.


	3. Chapter Three: The Only Water In The For

**Chapter Three: The Only Water in the Forest**

Donna's next awakening was more confusing and painful than the last one. There was a hissing that part of her awareness registered, inconsistent but still present. Her eye lids cracked open, and glimpsed a shadow moving in her peripheral. She rolled off her side, and barely had enough energy to bring her arm up to block out the dangling light.

Another hiss came from off to the side of her, and turned her head in the direction that it came from. There was a woman crouched down against the wall. Her hair was wildly curly and a mixture of blonde and brunette. There was something about her that was familiar, and her name was on the tip of her tongue, but it wouldn't connect to her brain.

The blonde woman stayed crouched where she was, a momentary movement that seemed to hint at her want to come to Donna, but she stopped herself.

"Donna? Are you Donna Temple-Noble?"

There was a brief thought of being pleased at someone getting her name right, but she was still wary at this new stranger, as the last one that had come looking for her hadn't worked out so well.

"Donna, I need you to come to me. If I move too much in here, they'll detect me, and if that happens, then I can't get you out of here," the strange woman whispered.

Donna thought for moment, trying to clear her head of the throbbing pain within. There was a brief flash of the woman in front of her, with a feeling of pity and wonder, and a feeling of trust. The version of the woman was older, and her riotous curls contained as she stood before her in a spacesuit. She blinked, and the current version swam back into her view. She mentally weighed her options, and made her decision.

Donna rolled over on her stomach, her limbs numb and throbbing at the same time, a paradox that she wasn't sure how it could be, but it was and she could attest to the possibility. She inched her way over to the woman, a painful crawl of arms and legs that she had mentally scream at to keep moving. The woman quietly encouraged her with words and outreaching hand, and she was able to ignore the beginning of a burning sensation in her mind.

When she was a metre or two away from her would-be rescuer, there came a sound of thundering footsteps at a distance approaching swiftly. Donna managed to reach out her hand to the woman just before the door to her prison opened, and the curly haired dirty blonde slid her opposite hand under Donna's outreaching one at her wrist where a device was wrapped around it. The woman slapped her hand on top of Donna's and pressed a button. Donna's ears barely caught the edge of a furious bellow of rage before the room disappeared around her.

* * *

><p>Donna's head swam as she reopened her eyes, blinking at the glaring sun above her as she lay sprawled on stone beneath her. A shadow moved over her face blocking out the sun, and looked into the face of the woman who'd rescued her standing above her. The woman reached out a hand to help her up, clasping her under her elbow to steady as she gained her balance.<p>

She ignored the strange looks they received from passersby, whether it was their abrupt appearance, or her rescuer's strange looking clothes. She realized that she didn't know the woman's name. "Who are you, by the way? You know my name, but I don't know yours."

The woman smiled at her. "My name is River Song."

Donna nodded, and reached out her hand to shake River's. "Nice to meet you, River. Now if you could point in the direction where I can get a cab so I can go home, that'd be brilliant."

River let go of Donna, and stepped away. "I'm sorry, Donna. I am so sorry, but I can't let you do that."

Donna narrowed her eyes at the woman, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, and how're you gonna stop me, blondie?"

River sighed slightly. "I'm not threatening you, but if you go home again, you will be taken again and I may not be able to get you out this time. The Great Intelligence will not stop until he gets what he wants from you."

"Is that the bloke in the top hat? He doesn't seem so scary," Donna blustered, but a shiver of dread betrayed her mask of bravado.

"He is, in fact, very dangerous and very ruthless. And I think you know that," River said.

"So we can call the police on him and let them take care of him and the freaky bunch of blokes with no faces with him." Donna turned away and started to walk down the street, trying to see if there was something she recognized about her surroundings, aside from the fact that they were in Cardiff. River followed her, matching her slow but steady pace easily

"The police would be slaughtered if they were to approach him. There is only one man who can defeat the Great Intelligence. And that is the Doctor."

The word 'Doctor' reverberated through Donna's mind, and the burn that had faded since their escape clawed its way back across her brain.

"What doctor are you talking about?" Donna placed a hand on her head as if to push away the burning, and backed away from River. "That bloke asked about a doctor, too. Was this some sort of trick? You're really with him, aren't you?" Her voice was rising with her anger as the accusation passed her lips.

River held up her hands in a placating gesture as she inched closer to Donna, who continued to move away. "I'm not with the Great Intelligence. He is no friend of mine, but the Doctor is. He's your friend, too. You just don't remember."

"What d'you mean, don't remember? The only doctor I know is Dr. Williams, who I work for, and I don't think he's up to anything barmy."

River had a slight smile on her face reminded Donna of the Mona Lisa, like she knew an amusing secret and was leaving you out of the joke. "I doubt Dr. Williams up to anything aside from treating his patients." She paused. "But the Great Intelligence is seeking not just any doctor, but the Doctor. The most singular being in the entire universe. He is a man not of this world, and has saved this planet more times than can be counted, and he has been a long time enemy of the Great Intelligence." Out of the corner of her eye, River realized that they were being followed. As they passed by store windows, she tried to see the reflection of the person tailing them.

It took a couple of windows to get a better picture of who she might be up against. It was a woman, dressed in modern clothes, of petite stature and with dark brown hair that hung past her shoulders. A black leather jacket, well used and comfortable across her frame as strode down the street in an effort to keep up River and Donna.

River waited until the unknown woman was briefly distracted by a bicyclist crossing her path, almost running her over, when she grabbed Donna's arm and pulled her down an alley and to the back of the building. She swung Donna around until she was behind her. She pulled out a gun that Donna hadn't noticed that had been strapped to River's thigh and pointed it at the corner nearest to the entrance of the back alley they were hidden in.

Donna opened her mouth to say something, but the scrape of rubber soles on asphalt alerted her to the presence of someone heading their way. She glanced around for something to be used as a weapon. A dented skillet provided the only thing that wasn't too flimsy or heavy for her. She retook her place behind River, clasping both hands on the handle, ready to bash someone should they come too close to her. As much she didn't like being cornered, somehow this all felt familiar to her. There was a spike of the burning in her mind as another image flashed before her eyes of an enormous wasp flying at her as she ducked out of the way.

A woman came around the corner with a gun in her hands. River raised her blaster until it lined up with the woman's head as she came fully around the corner. River pressed her blaster against the woman's temple. "Give me your weapon." The woman had stopped moving, and released her gun until it spun and was held only by a finger in the trigger well. She held it out far enough that River's balance was compromised trying to reach, and the woman turned and grabbed for River's gun as she reached for the woman's.

They ended up facing each other, with their opposite weapons in hand. River felt a moment of irritation as well as admiration; for it isn't often someone got the drop on her. "Who are you, and why are following us?" she asked

The woman looked between the two of them, and answered. "The two of you appeared out of nowhere. I got a mate or two that are constables that give me a heads up on anything out the ordinary, especially in Cardiff." A Welsh accent colored her words. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you got here by vortex manipulator. That kind of technology is not of this earth, at least not yet."

River quirked an eyebrow at her knowledge. "There are only two organizations in this time and place that would have that kind of information, and you don't look like UNIT. So that would make you-"

"Torchwood. Not that it exists anymore."

"If you were Torchwood, you wouldn't happen to know Captain Jack Harkness, by any chance?"

The woman flinched slightly, but enough that River noticed. The woman gripped River's blaster a little tighter. "How exactly do you know Jack?"

River's Mona Lisa smile returned to full force. "Let's just we've been known to see the same Doctor."

The woman's eyes widened and she lowered River's blaster. "You know the Doctor?"

River contemplated lowering the gun in her hand. "We've crossed paths."

The woman turned the blaster in her hand, with the butt towards River, offering its return. "If you know Jack and the Doctor, then you are not my enemy, or a threat to Earth. My name is Gwen Cooper. If you need my help, then you have it."

At this, River lowered Gwen's gun, spun and offered it back to her. They exchanged their weapons back to their original owners, and River offered her hand. "River Song and this is Donna Temple-Noble."

Gwen started at the second name. "Donna? We haven't met directly, but we saw each other via computer screen when the Daleks stole the Earth and twenty six other planets."

Donna had another brief flash of an image in her mind, that of two men who were so indistinguishable from each other, that the only way to tell them apart was their clothes. There was a greater burn with this image, as if she were getting closer to whatever mystery was going on with her.

"That's mental, that is! How can a planet be stolen? Are you one of those conspiracy nutters or somethin'?" She hated the feeling that there was something she was missing, like others saw something she couldn't. Another of images of people looking at something behind her, like there was something on her back flash into her head, compounding the previous wave of pain.

River cut off whatever Gwen was going to say as she grabbed for Donna's arm when it looked like she was losing her equilibrium. "There isn't time for this conversation right now, at least not out in the open. We need to secure Donna somewhere so that we can track down the Doctor."

Gwen nodded grimly. "D'you think that Jack could help?"

"I'll take all the help I can get as long as it can get me to the Doctor so that we can fix Donna. And it's always a pleasure to work with Captain Jack Harkness." The lascivious smirk on River's face was on that Gwen was familiar with, especially pertaining to her former boss.

"If you'll come with me, I know somewhere where we can hide out. It should still have medical equipment there. Somewhere." There was a wistful quality to her statement that River understood and Donna was oblivious to.

Donna tried to shrug off River, but that only caused dizziness to take hold. "There's nothing wrong with me! It's the rest of the world that's gone barmy!"

River looked over at Gwen, a pitying look of sorrow on her face as she took a deep breath before she took the figurative plunge. "I'm sorry, Donna. But something was taken from you, in order to protect you, to save your life. But now, the danger to you and the rest of reality is too great to leave you as you were. And we need to find the Doctor and convince him to return you to your former state."

Donna looked at River, a slightly frightened look in her eyes. "What was taken from me?"

River looked the redhead in the eye, unwilling to flinch away from the truth.

"You lost yourself."


End file.
